Comparing and Contrasting Works of Art

You are supervising the docents who will be conducting tours and answering questions during a local festival, and you want them to become familiar with artworks from different eras. You ask them to use the below websites to find museums that feature exhibits or permanent collections of Islamic, ancient Egyptian, and ancient Greek/Etruscan/Roman art. Choose one specific work from each category for a total of three works. Compare and contrast the three works, explaining how they fit into the context of their time period and culture.

I apologize but I am truly confused and/or lost with this course as I do not understand art interpretation or the subject matter so any assistance or guidance would be very much appreciated.

This is my opinion after researching information:

Art is a form of expression in some sort by the individual ? based in many different forms and aspects. Today people utilize their feelings, emotions and thoughts to create pieces for display or sale. However, in the ancient times art had a different meaning. Depending on the era/time it was spiritual, symbolic or religious based and/or was not meant for resale but symbolic purposes so to speak. Unfortunately all pieces were not salvageable from these eras. For instance, burial art is the majority of what was left over the Etruscans. Thus, burial art I feel should be my main point of focus. This leads to the following:

The Greeks influenced the Etruscans in pottery and religion before the Romans rose to power. Once the Romans became a Republic they expanded and conquered both the Etruscans and Greeks taking much of the burial customs from both. Thus, the Romans somewhat absorbed cultures. However, the Egyptians are much older culture wise than the other and are known for elaborate burial rights with gold sarcophagi, urns with food and the dead slaves and pets with them in the tombs. However, the Greeks did have communications with the Egyptians but it was the Romans that finally took over the Egyptian empire and again the gods from both cultures were absorbed along with funeral customs. As for Islamic funeral are they had a huge amount of contact with both the Egyptians "who they ruled for a short time as Pharaohs" and the Greeks who they battled with in the legendary wars such as the ones depicted in the movie "Alexander" and the Romans as well especially the Eastern Empire or Byzantine Empire once the Western Empire fell to the many barbarian tribes "Goths, Huns, Vandals, etc" So in short I feel to formulate this piece properly focus should be on art work that is burial related because it is a common thread and one that follows each culture. As the key is that they all influenced each other in this area.

***But I am having difficulty locating art of this form for the eras in question. I have found items that have been located in burials such as coins, pictures over tombs depicting the faces the buried but what is considered art and what is considered treasure or is it all art since what we consider art is different or alters from that period??? I have located urns (which are attached) for some eras but not other works and/or burial art and/or how they relate to their specific

Attachments

Solution Preview

I have posted your question in the solution window for ease of reference rather than having to refer to the attachment. The other three attachments all appear to be the same link to the same Urn (Terracotta Funerary Urn). I think the missing two links to the Urns you are referring to are:

You are supervising the docents who will be conducting tours and answering questions during a local festival, and you want them to become familiar with artworks from different eras. You ask them to use the below websites to find museums that feature exhibits or permanent collections of Islamic, ancient Egyptian, and ancient Greek/Etruscan/Roman art. Choose one specific work from each category for a total of three works. Compare and contrast the three works, explaining how they fit into the context of their time period and culture.

I apologize but I am truly confused and/or lost with this course as I do not understand art interpretation or the subject matter so any assistance or guidance would be very much appreciated.

This is my opinion after researching information:

Art is a form of expression in some sort by the individual ? based in many different forms and aspects. Today people utilize their feelings, emotions and thoughts to create pieces for display or sale. However, in the ancient times art had a different meaning. Depending on the era/time it was spiritual, symbolic or religious based and/or was not meant for resale but symbolic purposes so to speak. ...

Solution Summary

This solution will compare and contrast the three works of art, explaining how they fit into the context of their time period and culture.